


Pillow Forts

by geoffox



Series: Forts [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blanket Forts, Buckovery, Cute, M/M, barely though - Freeform, pillow forts, recovery barnes, tony and nat are there too so like yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:01:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4201917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geoffox/pseuds/geoffox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's building forts again. Hold onto your hats everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Forts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Here's a quick fix for the Stucksters. Featuring some Buckovering Bucky! (Recovering)

"Bucky's building forts again." Tony hears Natasha say while she digs through the pantry. She's talking to Sam, who's nurturing a cup of coffee at the counter, but Tony's there so he overhears without even trying.

Sam nods, taking a long sip. He's stayed at the Avengers Tower periodically over the last few months, popping up for a week or two, leaving, returning for a few days in a sort of stilted pattern that corresponds with Steve's absences. He showed up a lot more when Barnes first got to the tower so by this point Stark thinks he's just here for the food. Getting to hang out with Norse gods and national heroes is a plus.

Natasha pulls out a muffin, the cheap, blissfully processed, fake blueberry kind, and opens it, wrapper crinkling. Tony pokes the coffee machine and it makes an unhappy beep. There's a collective sigh over the room, even though it’s late afternoon. Exhaustion is a feeling often shared among the residents of the tower. Any chance to enjoy a comfortable silence is welcomed.

Sam finally drinks the last sip of coffee, places his mug in the sink, and heads upstairs. Tony sort of wants to follow, because he likes to know the know. Instead he pokes the coffee machine again, because Bucky is a ninety year old assassin that probably wouldn’t take kindly to him intruding.

****  
  
  


***

****  
  
  


Bucky’s been living like a dulled knife for a while now. Every week he seems to take a different combination of pills, leaving him disoriented and quiet. He’s like a kid, really, Sam realized that a while back. Probably when Bucky built his first pillow fort after Steve left. It had been a quiet day, right after Steve had left to go on a mission in Iran. Sam recalls the phone call he got, a day before, where a worried Steve had asked him to come to the tower to look after Bucky. It had barely taken any convincing. No one can say no to Steve Rogers, not right away at least.

So Sam had ambled up to New York and settled in. He’d mingled just a little, enough to shake hands with some pretty important people, before he headed upstairs to go check on Barnes.

There’d been no answer on the door, but it wasn’t locked either (there were no locks anymore on the Rogers-Barnes floor after Bucky locked himself in the bathroom and had a panic attack) so he’d let himself in and had been met with too many pillows on the floor. He finds Bucky curled up under a carefully constructed masterpiece of a fort, all quiet eyes and sniffles.

"Steve left," is what he says that day.

"He'll be back," Sam reassures. "Did you take your medicine?"

"I really really _really_ like Steve," Bucky says.

Sam thinks back to Bucky and Steve, how Barnes always dotes on every word that comes out of Steve's mouth. He settles back onto his haunches. "I know."

But that was then and this is now. Now when Sam opens the door and finds an astoundingly elaborate pillow palace on the floor, he knows exactly how to address it.

"What's up?" He asks, crawling under a blanket and spotting Bucky curled up with a stress ball and a bottle of water. He can't help but smile because Barnes is kind of adorable.

All the same he knows that pillow forts are not built without cause. It is important to figure out the source of these fort building tendencies. (Usually its Steve).

“Steve’s going on a date, when he gets back.” Barnes complains to Sam as he comes closer. “With that Carter girl that asked him out.”

“Well that’s not good, is it?” Sam says sympathetically. Just go with it. “Do you want to tell Steve maybe? Otherwise he might never know.”

Bucky is all wide eyes and long hair. He sighs and squeezes the stress ball mechanically with his left hand. “I don’t know…” He seemed to curl up even more. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“James,” Sam shakes his head. “What do your memories tell you? _Your_ memories.” This is an exercise a lot of people have to do with Bucky. They ask him to check his memories whenever he questions them. Examine the evidence. Do the thing Buck, do the thing.

“They tell me he likes me,” Buck sounds meek. It’s like he knew the answer already, but just had trouble believing it. In the beginning Buck had trouble believing a lot of things. He didn’t believe that this was just another “scenario” as he called it. A test for him. He didn’t believe that they weren’t here to hurt him, or that he was allowed to— _fucking_ breathe on his own and _Sam really wants to kick HYDRA’s ass._

“That’s right,” He croons instead. “Steve likes you, I like you. Almost _everyone_ likes you, you’re a likeable guy.”

Barnes sorta makes this grumbly noise like a buzzing phone. Sam closes his eyes for a moment. God. Steve is so freakin oblivious.

“What if he doesn’t like like me?” Bucky clarifies, worried.

“Well you’ll never know unless you try telling him,” Sam coaxes. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He could hate me,” Barnes’ lower lip sticks out a bit.

“Really?” Sam asks, rolling his eyes. “ _Really_? Steve? Hate _you_? Are you hearing yourself Barnes?”

“He could,” Buck says defensively.

“Yeah, could _never_. Bucky, examine your memories. Has Steve ever hated you? After everything that’s happened?”

Barnes takes a long moment to think. “No…” He finally says, but it’s doubtful.

“ _Erase_ the unsurety, B.”

“No.” Barnes says, yawning. “Okay so no. He’s never hated me.” He freezes suddenly, turning rigid like ice.

“What?” Sam manages to get out before the door opens and Steve’s voice calls out.

“Buck–Oh.”

Time to make a quick exit, Sam. Sam, get _moving_ Sam. Sam makes a “shushing” motion with his finger to his lip and quickly starts to crawl his way out of there. This is a perfect Barnes-Rogers moment that he does _not_ want to ruin it. He speed crawls his way all the way around the large couch that is being used a central support. Then he collapses onto his stomach and checks his Steve radar.

Steve is quiet for a while. Then there’s the sound of blankets and the clumsy sound of less practiced crawling. Sam smiles and roll out from behind the couch. Then he hoofs it for the door, opening the well oiled door with a wily grin.

‘ _Good_ _luck_ ’ he mouths towards the pillow and blanket fort masterpiece. Then he slips out.

 

Steve wonders how long this fort thing has been going on. This thing is _massive_. It spans across the living room, propped up with seat cushions and the various furniture scattered around the room.

“Buck?” He tries again, timid. A well made pillow fort can be exceedingly intimidating.

“I’m here,” Bucky calls out softly. “Just come on in, the water’s fine.” His voice cracks on fine, so Steve automatically knows that everything isn’t fine with Bucky. Time to investigate.

He crawls under the blanketed entrance and immediately is greeted by a world of soft light and softer corners. Bucky is a lump in the back, by the front of the couch.

Steve comes closer. “Is this what you always do when I leave?” He asks gently.

“Maybe.” Bucky replies weakly. “I don’t know.”

“You take your meds yet?”

“Why are you back so early?” Buck counters.

Steve gets closer. “We got halfway to Pakistan and the job had already been completed. So we turned around and went right back.” Steve smiles. “Did you take your meds?”

“Yeah,” Buck answers.

“This is pretty impressive,” Steve says, looking around for a moment. When he turns back towards Barnes—

Bucky strikes.

“ _Mmrph_!” Is the sound Steve Rogers makes when he gets surprise kissed by Bucky Barnes.

“Mmurghs,” Is the open mouthed gaping noise he makes right after Bucky retreats to himself.

“I really really really like you Steve.” Bucky says, before he practically shrinks down into a puddle of shame. This was a bad idea.

There’s a long minute where Steve’s brain is still processing everything that’s happening and he continues to make sounds sort of like the first two. Then he scrambles even closer to Bucky, the pillow fort swaying with all the movement, and flops himself on top of the half-robot-adorable-amazing-yes-super-soldier. Bucky’s robot arm automatically goes into flail mode and the fort collapses and Steve gets a black eye but it was worth it because that kiss was so much better than the first one and things heal.

Things heal. People do to.

 

And the third kiss was better than all of them combined.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking it'd be cool to have the other marvel peeps build forts with Bucky, as like a, team building thing. Oh well.
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> Comments, kudos, etc, very much appreciated. Thanks for all of your support!
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> [Check me out on tumblr!](http://geoffreyisthebest.tumblr.com)


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